


beautiful and on fire and awful

by rokudaime



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Chronic Illness, Gen, HateShip, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokudaime/pseuds/rokudaime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The very fact that Deidara once marveled at those eyes, thought them <em>art</em> in their own right, would be a thorn in his side until the day he died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beautiful and on fire and awful

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through around 400 in the manga. Takes place during the timeskip pre-Shippuden.
> 
> TW for drug use (in a medical context).

  

 

His back hit the wall, pain cracking through his skull, and he knew he was useless after that.

The force of the explosion had jarred him deeply and for a long moment there was nothing — a suffocating absence of stimulus. It slowly receded and in its wake came the too-sharp awareness of his body. It was an ominous sign that when he tried to move he felt rock shifting and crumbling beneath his shoulders.

He had to move. They’d kill him if he didn’t.

By the time he opened his eyes the cloud of ash and dust had dissipated. After a tentative breath of the clean air (stabbing pain in his ribs, that probably wasn’t good) he realized that it was inside him. Grit clinging to the lining of his throat and lungs. He staggered away from the wall, racked by a violent coughing fit.

He saw the head that snapped his way at the sound.

Light shifted into shadow and there was a massive form blocking his way. A groan of frustration welled up in him because he had to move, he had to kill the one who attacked him. Only it registered a second too late that the man in his way had already disposed of the threat. The body lay crumpled on the ground and with a practiced swing Samehada was neatly fit into its place across a broad back.

“Kisame. Get Deidara out of here.”

He felt himself sway as his vision whirled and blackened from the edges. That voice always grated. He glared towards it until its source came into focus, hating that Sasori could manage to sneer at him through the body of a dead man, through a lifeless face almost completely obscured.

“You shouldn’t have let that hit you. Or was that the point? Let yourself get blown up so you can become  _real art?”_

His indignation at the taunt was fierce and sudden but it vanished into shock when Kisame’s arm closed around his waist and hefted him off the ground. Any intent to fire back at Sasori with venom of his own was summarily dashed the instant he was doubled over Kisame’s shoulder and a fresh wave of pain shot through him.

He’d lost consciousness before they reached the mouth of the cave and the open air.

 

 

He was aware of the ache before the darkness. It seemed to be everywhere, and he wondered vaguely how that could be. With the acknowledgement of the darkness came the realization that he could break it if he wanted to.

He opened his eyes and swallowed back the moan. Light hurt his head, apparently, but he couldn’t recall why it would.

“You’re awake.”

That was a voice he’d know anywhere, languid and flat. He found it didn’t matter anymore that lying still with his eyes closed seemed to be the only way this splitting headache faded to a dull throb. He was scrambling upright, facing the prone body across from him and pressing his back into the wall.

“Why’d they put me in here with you?”

It came out a snarl, though the baring of his teeth had more to do with the stitch in his side that wouldn’t let him take anything but a shallow breath. The Uchiha’s only reaction to his hostility was to close his eyes. Like Deidara was a child he was already weary of dealing with.

“I would’ve thought it would be obvious. We weren’t capable of fighting anymore.”

“What’s wrong with you then, yeah?” His eyes roamed Itachi’s form, finding not even a patch of his clothing dirtied or torn, his pale skin unmarred from fingertips to wrists, neck to brow. “Not a scratch on you, is there? Tch.”

Nevermind the fact that he still couldn’t remember where he got these burns on his arms, or the concussion that was likely behind his lapse in memory and the migraine alike. Itachi ignored these attempts at belligerence, not even deigning to look his way.

“I was low on chakra. It would have been unwise to let it run out, so I came down here while the others cleaned up the mess. You were in bad shape. I did what I could.”

 _Down here?_  He blinked, and it registered. The room was small, earthen walls and floor lacking any distinguishing features, apart from the ladder by Itachi’s feet and the crude torch that provided the only lighting. Deidara recognized it as the emergency bunker a quarter-mile from their Earth country hideout.

Earth country.  _His_  country.

He remained stock-still as the memories came trickling back, disjointed at first then fitting together properly. The searing pain through his arms, the crushing blow of the enemy’s attack. Explosion Release. The motherfucker used his own kekkei genkai against him. This fact twisted his face with self-righteous fury before he again became aware of his company and how long he’d been silent. Itachi was watching him, now, with those eyes that always made him feel overexposed.

“I don’t need your fuckin’ help, yeah!”

“You did, actually. You had internal bleeding and third-degree burns.”

His eyes flicked down to his arms, covered with scabs that looked a day old already. He flexed his fingers and bent them at the elbows, waiting for pain that never came. It turned him sullen. “And you’re tellin’ me you took care of it? _You?”_   He barked a derisive laugh. “You’re not a medic.”

Itachi’s gaze slid away from him, back to the ceiling. “Basic medical training is mandatory in ANBU. I knew enough to stabilize you.”

There was a brief silence in which the look on Deidara’s face could be read as impressed, but he rebounded instantly. It morphed into a scowl. “You’ve been holding out on us.”

“None of you ever asked. And my partner isn’t the type to get injured badly enough to need it.”

It was a low blow and Deidara’s reaction was entirely predictable. His shoulders drew up with a sharp breath before he leaned forward, looking ready to pounce.

“Stop that.” Itachi sounded tired, and not at all wary of the killing intent directed towards him. He’d closed his eyes again, rubbing lightly at his forehead with long, elegant fingers. “Just lay down and shut up. We have to move again in a few hours and we both need the rest.”

Deidara seethed in silence, caught between warring impulses. The indignity of being ordered around by the entitled Uchiha brat did not sit well with him, but neither did the feeling of light-headedness that had him slumping against the wall. Perhaps a bit of rest wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

With an air of petulance he laid back down, facing the cold earth. He did his best to ignore the prickles of discomfort that came from turning his back on such a treacherous individual and letting his guard down. For a while he could only stare at the flickering patterns of torchlight on the wall’s uneven surface. Eventually exhaustion won out and darkness claimed him.

 

 

When he came to, the darkness was absolute. His reaction was purely instinctual. He pulled himself upright and faced the one whose presence he could still sense behind him. Not being able to see him had Deidara’s pulse quickening. He’d merely opened his mouth to ask why it was dark when Itachi spoke.

“I let it burn out. They’re outside.”

Still attempting to get a handle on consciousness, he replied with a grunt. Itachi climbed up ahead of him, and when the hatch opened the light that filtered in was weak. It made the ordeal of navigating the rungs in his current state more challenging, but with one breath of the cool, clear night air it was worth the effort.

He tried to stand and it took more than one attempt. They didn’t wait for him to succeed to start the briefing.

“So, as it turns out, there’s quite a pretty price on your blond head,” grinned Kisame.

“No shit,” he spat. Finally he stood at his full height, confusion lending more aggression than his response might have otherwise had. “We’re Akatsuki. What’s new?”

“I’m talking specifically  _you_ ,” Kisame elaborated, the smile gone. “We tortured it out of the skinny one who tried to run. The Tsuchikage issued a bounty on you. Guess he’s been catching hell from the other Kage for how soft he’s been on the Akatsuki. Something about how you were his student?”

Deidara’s face was frozen with a mix of shock and rage. It was all he could do to breathe, ignoring the pain that throbbed in protest, and the betrayal running undercurrent to it all.

“The old man sold me out.” It was quiet, and surprisingly calm. Deliberate effort was needed to make it so.

Kisame gave a chuckle. “Looks like it. Well, we won’t be able to use that hideout again. More showed up not long after you left. The ones from earlier must’ve sent for backup and given coordinates.”

“Enough talk,” Sasori cut in, his gravelly voice ringing with finality. “We need to move.”

None of them argued. They set off to the south, toward the border of Earth and Rain. With the entirety of the nation’s shinobi population likely out for his blood, Deidara had no objections to putting this godforsaken land far behind him.

If only it were that easy. They were a day’s journey from the border, at least. Though Deidara initially planned on crafting a bird to ride, Sasori forbade it, claiming it would draw too much attention and make traveling out in the open a necessity. It was much better to seek cover. Deidara grudgingly relented, not least because he was unsure if he could spare the chakra for a mount in the first place.

On foot it was, through the dense forest. Only an hour into the trek he’d resigned himself to the fact that there was no way he could breathe or move that reduced the pain cramping his every step. It was his constant companion, like the sliver of moon hanging overhead and the eerily silent man at his side. Sasori had grown impatient and left him trailing behind, followed not long after by Kisame, but still Itachi kept pace with him.

“I’m not going to pass out if that’s what you’re thinking,” he grumbled when he could stand it no longer.

Itachi said nothing. It was no great surprise.

The sun was nearing the horizon when they came upon a village. The apprehension that’d started to settle over him at the sight was dispelled when Kisame’s voice reached him from the edge of the woods.

“It’s abandoned. Burned down, looks like.”

 _Not quite._  Deidara recognized the place once he’d caught up to the others. There were spaces where houses should be, rows and rows of them, reduced to their charred foundations. It was satisfying, somehow, to know they’d never rebuilt.

“We’ll rest here.” Sasori was gazing at one of the few buildings left standing, a small farmhouse on the village’s edge. One of the walls had started to crumble where it was kissed by the blast, but being built of stone it was sturdy enough to remain mostly intact.

He stood on the dirt path staring for a long moment. Then he was left alone with the silence and the wind whipping around his cloak, and Deidara followed wordlessly inside.

The place certainly looked like it had been abandoned for several years. It’d been gutted of all signs of life. His eyes skimmed over the rotted floorboards, the dead leaves gathered in every corner. It was a definite step down from their usual accommodations, but finding an inn and renting a room was out of the question. On a typical mission it was simply a matter of finding a civilian town where they’d go unrecognized, but such a venture seemed unlikely now.

There was a creak from the floor above, and before he’d decided whether to head upstairs Itachi appeared in a doorway to his right.

“They took that room. We’re in here.”

Deidara must have looked as appalled as he felt because Itachi deemed it necessary to give him an explanation.

“Sasori doesn’t want to deal with you in this state. His words, mind you, not mine,” he clarified when Deidara’s gaze turned murderous. “And someone needs to keep an eye on you.”

“Get off my ass, yeah! I’m fine.”

His protests rang hollow. He still sank to the floor, leaning wearily against the wall. Sitting across from him, Itachi paid him no mind as he unfastened his cloak and rifled through the compartments of his equipment pack.

“How bad is the pain?”

He’d asked it mildly, still not looking at Deidara, who went very quiet at having been caught.

It was common sense not to show weakness amongst predators. He’d long accepted that that’s what they were, every one of them. Probably including himself. He swallowed thickly but said nothing.

With gaze averted, it took him a moment to realize Itachi was offering him something. His hand, extended, held a capped single-use syringe.

“Painkiller. It’ll help you sleep.”

Deidara hesitated, eyeing him warily.

“I wouldn’t poison you. It’d be pointless. You’re needed.”

Another moment’s deliberation and he snatched it from Itachi’s hand. “You always carry this shit with you?”

Itachi settled back into his corner, watching as he uncapped the needle and found a place to push it into his skin. The sting was brief, melting away within seconds as the anesthetic spread.

He still hadn’t answered. Deidara decided it was a lost cause.

He felt his body start to relax. With a careful inhale, he found he could breathe freely, without pain, for the first time since the afternoon. He knew it didn’t bode well that his injuries were still debilitating after being treated once. But that was something he’d just have to deal with when they weren’t being actively hunted.

It was a little surreal how comfortable he was. Here, in a house he’d once tried to blow up, with only his mortal enemy for company. He might’ve laughed if he wasn’t so fucking tired.

He wouldn’t remember falling asleep in the morning.

 

 

Day came and brought with it a too-bright sun in a cloudless sky.

He’d known better than to hope he would wake up pain-free. It still put him in a foul mood to sit up and find it had returned even sharper than the night before. Sasori had apparently woken before anyone else and Deidara could hear him complaining through the door about how long he’d been waiting. Kisame, who  _hadn’t_  heard it a thousand times, was actually being sympathetic.

“Don’t encourage him,” Deidara grumbled to no one in particular as he stood and buttoned his cloak. Itachi was not in the room and he could only assume he was waiting with the others. When he opened the door the only one who greeted him was Kisame, with a smile, though it could have just as easily been called a nasty leer. Sasori made for the front door with no preamble, and Itachi only gazed across the room at him until he followed.

It seemed impossible for a human being to exist in such an expressionless state. Times like this he resented the boy he used to be for ever being impressed with him. It was hard to imagine more boring company. Did Itachi ever do anything for fun? Laugh at a joke? Deidara had never even seen him argue. There had been differences of opinion, sure, but Itachi had always been quick to resolve them with some forward-thinking logic and a dismissive air.

There could be no doubt that he was intelligent, and powerful, born with a unique bloodline trait. But that was where anything remarkable about him ended.

The very fact that Deidara once marveled at those eyes, thought them  _art_  in their own right, would be a thorn in his side until the day he died.

Which might not be too far off, if the way he felt was any indication. Today it seemed that walking was more of a challenge than it had been the night before. Though that could’ve had something to do with the terrain — near the border, it grew mountainous. A ridge of peaks loomed into view ahead of them around noon, above the treeline. It was still disappointingly hazy with distance but it was an encouraging sight nonetheless.

It had been decided that morning they would rest when they got close, until Deidara had recovered sufficient chakra to make more clay and craft the birds that would give them passage through the mountains. That was the plan. There was nothing he could really do to change it. If he dropped now, the others would be shit out of luck.

It was sad, really,  _that_  being the thought that carried him through it. Like he had any reason to care what happened to them. As individuals, they were among the most despicable, but as members of the Akatsuki they were a part of something more significant. An organization that gave Deidara purpose, that acknowledged his skill and usefulness and gave him ample opportunity to explore his chosen art.

He would always resent being forced to join, and he didn’t give a fuck about their ideals, but at least Akatsuki gave him a reason to get up in the morning.

It was through force of will alone that he made it as far they could go, to where the foothills rose to meet sheer rock face. His eyes traveled the height of it to where a hawk wheeled above the summit, nothing more than a speck to the naked eye. To his left, Kisame sank to the ground with a weary sigh. It was a relief to know he wasn’t the only one exhausted.

“Deidara. Look up there, tell me what you see.”

He followed Sasori’s gaze to where he was eyeing a shadowed area set back into one of the lower outcroppings. He gave a grunt of affirmation and focused his scope, closing in until he could make out sufficient detail.

“It’s a cave, all right. If I had to guess I’d say it looks man-made.”

“A lookout point?” Sasori hummed in a way that sounded more disgruntled than thoughtful.

Itachi was standing very still, staring too.

“There’s no one up there.”

Hearing this, Kisame stood, and Sasori was already on his way up.

Deidara was left behind, once again, astounded at how readily everyone seemed to take Itachi at his word.

 

 

It was indeed a cave, and a much larger one than the opening had suggested. It was carved out deep into the rock, and by the time Deidara joined the others Sasori and Kisame had already set up camp. They’d claimed the back, where the fading daylight didn’t reach. It would likely afford an easier sleep, but Deidara didn’t mind being so close to the open air. He liked it better when he could see.

It seemed there was someone else who liked it too. Itachi was even closer to the ledge than he was, braced against the wall right at the cave’s mouth. He was looking out over the endless countryside patched with woods and he didn’t turn towards Deidara when he addressed him.

“How are you holding up?”

The way he asked it was so impersonal, almost offhand, that Deidara wasn’t nearly as bothered as he might have been.

“All right.”

Itachi did look at him then. He cursed inwardly at how tired he sounded.

“Are you feeling faint?”

 _Only since this morning_. He somehow managed to look offended at the suggestion.

Itachi ignored this and moved closer, to Deidara’s alarm.

“Anything cold or numb?” When he didn’t answer Itachi changed tack. “Take off your cloak.”

“What the fuck?”

“Deidara.”

The gravity in his voice had Deidara complying, hands moving despite his chagrin.

“Shirt too.”

The way he eyed Itachi was as flat a refusal as anything he might’ve said.

“Just lift it up, then. I need to check something.”

He stared a moment longer, and sighed as he lifted the hem. Itachi took a close look, then moved to his side where he pushed the cloth up higher.

Deidara’s eyes darted to the back of the cave as he raised a hand. “Hey, now—”

“Look at that.”

He ignored another pang as he twisted to see what Itachi was talking about. The skin there was mottled with deep bruises.

“Huh. Guess it’s from when he knocked me into the wall.”

Itachi only shook his head, something perturbed about the set of his brow. “Lay down.”

He was beyond arguing at this point. He did as he was told. Though the feeling of hands on his skin still made him flinch.

“Hold still.”

He stopped moving when he felt it. The kind of penetrating warmth he’d felt once before, when he was a chuunin back in Iwa and injured himself during training. The medic-nin used this same technique to mend his broken arm.

He couldn’t get over how bizarre it was to see Itachi like this. Leaning over him with a look of pure concentration as he channeled chakra through his palms. “I never would’ve thought you the healer type.”

“Stop talking.” Itachi took a breath and re-focused, brows furrowing in the slightest.

Not wanting him to mess something up Deidara kept his mouth shut and tried to stay motionless. As the seconds turned to minutes it was harder to keep up, but eventually Itachi took his hands away. He’d backed out of Deidara’s personal space but he was watching him carefully as he pulled himself upright again.

He settled against the rough wall. This time when he drew in a deep breath it felt blessedly normal, and he let it out with a sigh of relief.

“I thought you fixed that.”

“It was worse than I thought.”

He’d never heard Itachi sound this exhausted. He kept watching him as he leaned back into the wall opposite, knees drawn up and arms resting across them. There was everything closed-off about his body language but Deidara’s eyes were too sharp to miss the labored breathing, the heaviness of his eyelids.

“What’s up with you?”

He could make out was what meant to be  _nothing_ , but it was lost in a cough Itachi tried to stifle. The effort was useless. It only got worse. He could try to make it quiet but there was no mistaking that it sounded anything but healthy.

With Itachi’s head bowed, lank hair falling into his face, it was hard to see anything about his expression. But Deidara followed the back of his hand as he raised it to his lips and swiped. He saw the streak of red shining there as he dropped it.

He stared, eyes wide. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Even if he’d drained too much chakra, he’d have only lost consciousness. It wouldn’t cause his body to break down.

Not unless it was broken down already.

Itachi’s hand slipped inside his cloak and returned with something clutched in his palm that he brought to his mouth and breathed in. By the time he’d stashed it away he had regained his composure. He leveled a cool gaze at Deidara, who was still frozen, grappling with his dawning realization.

“You’re dying.”

It was shock that roughened his voice, and shock that showed on Itachi’s face for a split-second. It was barely perceptible. The smallest of cracks in a flawless facade. Bad form, for a hardened shinobi like him. Deidara seized on it with the fierceness of a revelation.

“That’s it, isn’t it? Why you’re coughing up blood. Why you’re carrying around a fucking pharmacy. Was that even true about ANBU? Or did you teach yourself all this?”

Itachi’s eyes were deadly cold as they stared him down. From the heavy tension of the silence he knew he was venturing into territory better avoided by a mile and yet he couldn’t stop himself.

“Shit. That was the first time I’ve seen something real on your face since they told us your little brother ran away, yeah.”

“Don’t,” Itachi warned, sending an uncomfortable trickle down Deidara’s spine with the quality of his voice alone. It would have worked on anyone else.

“So that’s what it was about, huh. You find out you’re dying and now you’re starting to regret some things, like how badly you fucked that kid up when—”

“You shut your mouth.”

It wasn’t the threat implicit in those soft-spoken words that had breath hitching in Deidara’s throat. It was his eyes. He swore he’d seen them change, the three tomoe shifting into blades of black, slicing through red.

They were back to normal in an instant. Behind the scope over Deidara’s left eye, the pupil had constricted.

Itachi said nothing more.

As he readied himself for bed every movement looked jarringly mundane in the wake of what had transpired. It seemed he’d chosen to ignore Deidara’s very existence and yet he remained on guard, eye at the ready.

In his quest to train it against the Sharingan’s genjutsu, he’d learned a few things. It was a strange kekkei genkai, to say the least. First activated by intense emotion — the kind that, until relatively recently, he’d thought the Uchiha incapable of experiencing.

More interesting was the discovery that Itachi’s were the exception, not the rule. Only a few had achieved the advanced stage he could awaken. The one that gave him the black fire and the worst genjutsu in his arsenal. It too was born of emotion. Reacting not to anger, or hatred, but to an anguish too deep for the Sharingan user to bear.

That’s what he’d seen in Itachi’s eyes.

He could almost convince himself he hadn’t, but that was precisely why it haunted him. There and gone in a single flash. It left him feeling that he knew too much, and maybe Itachi would think so too. But he had no plans to go running his mouth.

These things weren’t so easily translated to words, after all.

All he would say on the matter came out in a murmur as he rolled a lump of clay in his palm, more to himself than his companion.

“Maybe you do have a soul.”

Sunset bathed them in red before the light finally died away. Itachi’s face was inscrutable in shadow, but still it was the Sharingan that kept Deidara preoccupied long after he should have been asleep.

He’d been right, the day they met. It was a thing of unspeakable beauty.  
  


 


End file.
